5 Apr 2017

Liverpool face Bournemouth in a few hours, and ahead of the game, John Aldridge has urged Jurgen Klopp to fix one specific aspect of the Reds' play.

In his column this week for the Echo, Aldo slammed Liverpool's defending of free-kicks and corners as 'absolutely ridiculous', and insisted that Klopp needs to urgently focus on this defensive aspect of LFC's game. He explained:

"The gap between the goalkeeper and the defensive line is far too big, it’s kamikaze, it’s an accident waiting to happen. A late runner and we’re in big trouble. Why don’t they all run out like we used to? I’m panicking every time the opposition get them".

Aldo is right, and the proof is in the pudding: bar West Brom, Liverpool have conceded more goals from set-pieces this season than any other Premier League team, with the 14th set-piece goal coming against Everton at the weekend, a goal Aldo described as 'terrible, and 'sloppy'.

Liverpool were top of the set-piece charts last season, too, which shows that Klopp hasn't bothered to fix this issue. The obvious culprit is the infernal practice of zonal marking, and it's a mystery why Klopp continues to utilise this obviously failing strategy.

With few exceptions, zonal marking doesn't work! Anyone with even rudimentary tactical knowledge knows how to defeat it, and Liverpool's fallibility in this area continually gifts the opposition cheap goals.

On Tuesday, Klopp revealed his plan to switch to a more defensive approach for the rest of the season; hopefully, this includes improving the team's defending at set-pieces.